The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Flyer
by AllenbysEyes
Summary: All Lapis Lazuli knew is that she had to flee. From Earth, from the Moon, from the Diamonds, from Steven and the Crystal Gems...from Peridot. From home. From herself. One-shot, set immediately after "Can't Go Back." No explicit content, but very downbeat.


**Author's note:** _Hi everyone! Like most SU fans, I'm still reeling from last night's big reveal(s), and I'm writing this story as a way to try coming to terms with what happened to Lapis Lazuli. Unlike The Family Jewels, it takes place in canon and, fair warning, it's very angsty and downbeat. For my regular readers, rest assured that I will return to Family Jewels within the next few days._

By the time Lapis reached the edge of the Milky Way, the pain became unbearable.

She thought that the further away she flew from Earth, the easier it would be to tolerate. The more distance between her and her friends, the sooner she could forget.

Instead, the opposite happened.

She couldn't stop thinking about everyone. About how sad Steven looked at the moon base, knowing he might never see Lapis again, doing his best to persuade her to stay. How hard it was to abandon the first friend she'd ever made on Earth, the person who, more than anyone, told her what it meant to be alive after years of dormancy.

She couldn't stop thinking about how frightened and betrayed Peridot seemed when she took off into space with the Barn. The hurt on her barn mate's face. The hurt that she caused. The loneliness.

 _I am an awful, awful person_ , Lapis told herself, gritting her teeth as these memories played like projections in her mind, unstoppable, inescapable. _I hurt the only people who care about me._

 _All because I'm a coward, afraid of something that hasn't even happened yet._

She took a deep breath and felt a stab of defiance in her chest.

 _My leaving is for the best_ , she assured herself. _Everyone on Earth is better off without me._ Then, trying to spin it into an affirmation... _I'm better off without them_.

But she doubted that very much.

She hesitated for just a moment, levitating at the edge of the galaxy, the dark expanse of space just beyond her reach. Hundreds of light years to the next star. In between, blackness.

 _This is your last chance,_ Lapis, she thought to herself. _You can either live in the past and suffer, or move on and make a fresh start. Become your own Gem._

 _Time to move on._

She closed her eyes, flapped her wings as hard as she could, and sailed into the unknown.

* * *

Navigating the far reaches of space wasn't difficult. Her wings allowed her to fly at speeds unimaginable on Earth. And for the most part, there were no planets or asteroids or meteorites or any space junk to interrupt her.

Just a Gem alone with her thoughts. Time she thought she needed.

At first she welcomed that loneliness. She had been alone on the Moon, but the projection orb established a connection with Earth that she was reluctant to abandon. It was too tempting to ignore, and it kept her tied down. It reminded her too much of what could have been...

This was better.

Lapis told herself this over and over again. Better to be completely alone than to torture yourself with a lifeline.

But the farther she went, the harder the loneliness became to bear.

 _Just keep flying,_ Lapis told herself. _Think about flying._

And she thought, hoped even, for some kind of catastrophe to present itself.

* * *

Lapis had been alone through so much of her existence. She had only the dimmest memories of Homeworld, refined by age and distance, the harshness and boredom sanded off by nostalgia and regret. And even then her memories weren't the greatest.

Many eons ago, she had served in Blue Diamond's court. Blue Diamond always seemed to have the rarest gems, Aquamarines and Sapphires that were hard to come by and came with special powers. Lapis's terraforming skills made her essential to colonization; while she wasn't especially high ranking, she and the other Lapises received pride of place, considered above the mere Agates and Amethysts and Quartzes and Rubies that fought and died for the Diamonds without caring much why they did it.

She didn't particularly remember life on Homeworld, except that it seemed peaceful and orderly. She had acquaintances more than friends. She tried to make friends with other Lapises, including one who perished on a failed mission to Jupiter a few years before Lapis arrived on Earth. Lapis remembered her as being happy and full of life, wanting more to goof off and make fart jokes and play harmless pranks than to actually do her job. One of those people you never forget.

Then she went on a mission. "Don't worry, Lappy," she said, using a nickname Lapis never allowed anyone else to use, "I'll be back in a few years. Or maybe when you get your assignment, we can meet halfway. What's halfway between Earth and Jupiter, Mars?"

"Better Mars than a gas giant," Lapis said. She and her friend blew a raspberry at the same time, then burst out laughing.

Then she died, and Lapis's life seemed to have no meaning.

"I understand the pain of loss," Blue Diamond assured her after receiving the news. "I have lost many Gems during my lifetime, and it always strikes me to the bottom of my heart when one of them dies. Your friend died, and nothing can replace her. I only hope that I can bring you some comfort by saying that she didn't die in vain."

Blue Diamond's solicitousness was rare among upper tier gems. Yellow Diamond's aloofness was legendary, bottling up any feelings she had in a posture of unmoved disdain. White Diamond, few had met and no one dared speak of. Pink Diamond was young, immature, an evident failure; not mean, but no leader. Blue at least pretended to care.

It made Lapis feel a little better. But not much.

The other Lapises seemed more aloof and indifferent than Lapis's friend. Aquamarine loved to talk, but mostly about herself. Agate was too wrapped up in her work to care.

So when she went to Earth, she considered it a way to escape and find worth again, on her own.

"It should be an easy job," Blue Diamond assured her. "Pink Diamond assures me that Earth is already rich in water and natural resources that should make your work a simple question of redirecting rivers and lakes where we need them. Within a few decades you can have the entire planet adequately, transformed and return home."

"I won't let you down, My Diamond," Lapis answered.

But she did let Blue Diamond down. Because she poofed within minutes of her arrival. And it all went downhill from there.

* * *

The void became so dark that Lapis couldn't see or navigate. She could only fly, and hope she came out on the other side okay.

She instinctively braced herself, waiting for some celestial body to come along and tear her to shreds.

Nothing came.

She was alone.

Even inanimate objects don't want to be near me, Lapis told herself with a bitter laugh.

She tried making calculations in her head, how far she'd traveled and how long she'd been in space. So hard to keep track of time. She hoped that she'd come across a planet or a star, or at least a nebula or something to provide some light.

She choked back tears thinking that she might never see anything again.

Time passed, and nothing came.

* * *

 _You are worthless!_

 _You are a failure!_

 _You are a traitor!_

 _You are a Crystal Gem!_

Charge and counter-charge flashed so fast that Lapis could barely follow them. Just an endless nightmare, centuries of insults and accusations that she couldn't answer.

Being trapped in a mirror removed all agency. All individuality. She couldn't move, only think and occasionally direct her energies to talk.

She became a Thing, not a gem.

She didn't recognize most of the Gems who interrogated her. Most seemed to mid-level Gems, Jaspers and Quartzes and the occasional Agate. She remembered one particularly stressful interrogation by a Zircon who kept insulting her as a traitor and a disgrace, telling her that the only reason she wouldn't talk was because she was too much of a coward to face her own actions. She seemed to relish pushing Lapis's buttons, so much that the actual information she offered was lost to sadism.

Lapis couldn't answer them. She wasn't a Crystal Gem. She was a loyal soldier who had been murdered before she do anything.

But the insults stung. And over time, they sunk in. They hurt her. They destroyed her.

And what was worse, no one defended her.

Not a single friend or acquaintance arrived in her defense.

No one said, "Lapis Lazuli is a good, loyal gem who would never betray her Diamond."

Not even Blue Diamond. Who, on the rare occasions she visited Earth, surrounded herself with bodyguards and courtiers and made no effort to find out what had happened to the Lapis Lazuli she'd sent to Earth. Easy enough, Lapis supposed, to get another, one who would be more careful and less clumsy.

Maybe the Gems running Earth (Pink Diamond, or her minions) were deliberately hiding her, Lapis thought, trying to keep her mind occupied, to explain the strange mixture of indifference and hostility she faced. Maybe there was a cover-up.

Either way, it didn't matter to Lapis Lazuli.

Because now she was a prisoner.

She was a failure.

She was nothing.

* * *

There was nothing in the void of space. Nothing except Lapis and her thoughts.

For some reason she remembered the baseball game she and the Crystal Gems played with the Rubies. How she anointed herself "Bob" and played with a bare minimum of interest. The memory of that weird day amused her, until it didn't.

Until she remembered Peridot.

For some reason, she could think about the Crystal Gems without too much pain. She didn't have much interaction with any of them, and thus didn't care whether she made Pearl or Garnet or Amethyst feel bad. But Peridot was a different story.

She had spent almost a year of her life with Peridot. Almost every waking moment with Peridot.

Watching _Camp Pining Hearts_. Making meep morps. Looking after Pumpkin and farming. Watching the stars.

Spending time together.

Being friends.

And maybe, **more** than friends.

 _No...Lapis, you can't think about her any more! She's why you ran away!_

 _All I ever did was make Peridot miserable and worry about me. I ruined any chance at happiness by leaving home._

 _She's better off without you._

That thought again. Every time it popped up, she couldn't stop it. It repeated itself like a mantra.

 _Everyone's better off without you._

 _You are nothing._

* * *

They abandoned her. So she couldn't have been that important.

Her memories, like so much of her time on Earth, were fragmented, limited by the little she could see and overhear.

From the screams and shouts of Blue Diamond's court running away, she sorted out that there had been an attack by the Crystal Gems. An attempted raid or assassination against Blue Diamond herself during a visit to Earth. The assassins had failed, but the action threw Blue Diamond's coterie into a panic, and the generals convinced her to return home immediately.

In the confuse, an Agate grabbed the Mirror, hoping to make use of it. She joined in an exodus to the Galaxy Warp.

"Let Pink Diamond deal with it," one of Blue's Quartzes muttered. "This is her mess."

"No reason we should get involved in a Pink screw-up," another replied.

"Well, the Diamonds are united," the first Quartz said. "So I'm sure they felt some obligation to that hot mess of a princess who's running this planet. But it's hard to fight a war when your leaders are crying all the time."

That's all Lapis heard before she was stuffed inside some sort of bag or carrying case.

After that, something happened. An explosion. Screams. Running and shouting.

The Crystal Gems were back.

She felt the Agate running, heard her yell. Heard the loud, angry cry of a Crystal Gem.

She felt the bag fall to the ground as the Agate was poofed. And spilled out on the ground, her mirror facing towards the Earth.

And she remained there, listening to the screams, the sounds of desperate fighting and crowds of terrified gems scrambling for cover, the bang of explosions and the occasional whir of the warp pad as some lucky party of Gems managed to escape.

After awhile, the noises faded. The voices stopped. The battle ended.

And Lapis was alone. Again.

* * *

" **Finally** , some light!" Lapis shouted she saw a dim green glow in the distance.

Curious and relieved, she flew herself towards it, a moth drawn to a flame.

It took hours, maybe days. But she finally discovered the source.

A large nebula in the distance. Towering billows of gas and fire, making beautiful green clouds in the distance of space.

As Lapis drew nearer, she saw an eerie light reflecting off them. She could see faraway stars twinkling against it.

For a moment - or what seemed like a moment, it might have been weeks considering how time passed in space - Lapis was able to forget everything, to hover aimlessly and enjoy the spectacle, the feeling of sensation returning to her. The reminder that there was something out there more than dark, empty nothing.

Stars being born. Stars living. Stars dying.

Infinite possibilities. A chance at something new.

She felt the tingle of stellar radiation fall on her. Warm and comforting, like a ticklish sunbeam. It made Lapis feel a jolt of pleasure.

She felt...not happy, perhaps. But content. Comforted.

If she could, she would have stayed that way forever.

She instinctively looked for Homeworld's constellation on the horizon. And spotted it. And started to fly towards it.

Then reminded herself that she could never go back. And why. And stayed herself.

The content faded as the reminder sunk in. That nothing had changed.

That she had no home.

That she couldn't go back.

That she was alone. Forever.

* * *

"Pearl, I don't think you should have brought that back," the Fusion scolded.

"Garnet, it's just a mirror," the Pearl said.

"Look at the back, Pearl," the Fusion (Garnet?) said. "There's a gem on it. This isn't just a mirror. If it contains another gem, it could be really dangerous."

I'm not dangerous! Lapis screamed silently. I just want out!

Help me! Please!

I don't care who you are! I'll do anything you want!

The combination of fear and uncertainty and hope grew unbearable.

"Maybe you're right," Pearl muttered, examining the gem closely. "The gem on the back is cracked, so hopefully her powers are mitigated..."

Hopefully? You're hoping I'm injured?

Somehow, that hurt Lapis more than anything she'd heard so far. Someone wishing her on her, without even knowing who she was or what she meant.

"...Anyway, better safe than sorry," she said, summoning a stream of light from her gem.

Lapis realized what was happening only as the light blinded her.

It was too late to scream.

But she screamed anyway.

* * *

The nebula faded into the distance as Lapis kept flying. The light turned to dark again. Only the dimmest glimmers of starlight on the far horizon.

Lapis found herself consumed with loneliness. Found herself thinking about her friends, and what she'd left behind on Earth.

Earth.

A place she'd hated for so many years, then grown to accept.

Was learning to love.

Then she left it.

Because she was a coward.

Again the thought entered her mind: _Go back. It's not too late._

And again, the arguments played in her mind. Voices and thoughts and emotions battling each other so fiercely that she couldn't think of anything else.

 _They'll never forgive you._

 _They'll forgive me. Peridot and Steven are my friends, and the others..._

 _...The others never trusted you. They always hated you. They thought you were a Homeworld Gem, kept you locked up in that mirror for millennia, then tried to destroy you!_

 _They didn't know..._

 _...Which is worse! They didn't want to know._

 _Well, Peridot is still my friend..._

 _Peridot will never take you back._

 _No, she will._

 _No, she won't. You destroyed her faith in you. And you know why? Because you're worthless._

 _You're a horrible, selfish, cowardly piece of trash._

 _Just like everyone thought and everyone said._

 _You never received anything that wasn't coming to you._

 _Outside, the darkness returned and swallowed Lapis completely. Not even the faintest twinkle of a star on the horizon._

 _Just black. No light. No hope._

And the angry thoughts continued buzzing around her head, driving her mad.

And the worst part? No one to share them with.

No one to help her feel better, or at least empathize and listen to what she had to say, to tell her it was alright to feel the . No Peridot, no Steven. Not even Jasper.

And how awful were things that she was pining for Jasper?

But even she wasn't there. Instead, Lapise was all alone.

And she'd done this to herself.

 _Nice going, Lapis_ , a thought nagged at her. _Now what are you going to?_

Lapis clenched her eyes and tried to fight down the thoughts.

She pictured herself and Peridot together on the farm, holding Pumpkin and staring at the early morning sky, enjoying the vastness of the stars, the peacefulness of life on Earth. The pleasure of each other's company.

Being friends.

Being loved.

Not alone.

It wasn't perfect. But it had been better than what was there now.

Then another voice came into her head, reminded her:

"You don't have to be alone. No one deserves to be alone, least of all you. Even a broken person, even an awful, rotten person, deserves to be loved. Deserves to have friends. Deserves to feel belong."

Lapis started crying again, her tears floating off her face into the void.

For the briefest of moments, she thought again of returning to Earth, and to all her friends, to a life she'd tried so tentatively and hopefully to build. Trying to persuade herself that everyone might forgive and accept her. That even if they didn't right away, her being there would mean more than her being out in space, somewhere her friends couldn't find her and didn't even know that she was alive.

 _No,_ she told herself, steeling herself against remorse. And a strange new justification came into her head.

 _You made this choice. Right or wrong, it's yours. And it's too late to go back. You've come too far._

Lapis sighed at that realization. And it felt as if all her angst and regret escaped her chest along with the breath.

She no longer felt sad or angry or regretful. Just numb.

Because it didn't matter how she felt any more.

She was alone.

And would always be alone.

 _The only thing I can do_ , she told herself, _is to keep going._

And she fluttered her wings with an extra burst of power, hoping that some day she'd find that distant shore.


End file.
